Just like sunburns and getting stuck in traffic at the beach, Sharknado is one of those awful rituals of summer we can’t seem to shake. SyFy launched the first of the ridiculously awful and totally self-aware B movies four years ago and the franchise has become a hit both with viewers and on social media who love to pick apart the insane plots, cheesy special effects, “celebrity” cameos and awful acting from a cast of has-beens.

Sharknado: The 4th Awakens, the latest in the series, had all those things in spades and even more outlandishness than usual. This installment had our hero Fin Shephard (Ian Ziering) and his family teaming up with Astro X, a technology firm that discovered a way to keep Sharknados from happening, until their tech failed and we ended up where we always do, watching a bunch of crazy people wielding chainsaws to try to prevent a meteorological massacre.

Here are some of the craziest things to happen during the two-hour extravaganza, and it doesn’t even include a Chippendales dancer defeating a shark with his thrusting pelvis or when a house fell on rightwing troll Stacey Dash Wizard of Oz-style.

More than Sharks in the Nado: The premise of the movie was that Astro X invented pods that would disrupt the tornado before it took off, which would prevent tornadoes over the sea sucking up sharks that usually form a Sharknado. However, they can only defeat water-based Sharknados. So, when a windstorm in the Vegas desert collides with a giant tank full of sharks, a Sand Sharknado threatens Sin City and the pods can’t stop it. That then becomes a Bouldernado that is full of boulder-encrusted sharks, which leads to a Oilnado, which ignites causing a Firenado, which runs over a volcano causing a Lavanado, which flies over a nuclear reactor causing a Nuclearnado with green glowing sharks which needs to be put out with the waters of Niagara Falls for some reason that defies logic but makes perfect sense if you’re watching this film from Colorado where marijuana consumption is legal.

April is alive: At the end of the third movie in the series, fans got to decide if Fin’s long-suffering wife April (Tara Reid) got to live or die. Despite leading viewers to believe that she was dead for the first part of the evening, it was later revealed that she is alive – well, kind of. April died after giving birth inside a shark and her son Gil has never met her. Her father, an insane scientist played by Gary Busey, rescued her body and reanimated her corpse with robotics and other enhancements. That means April can fly with jets that shoot out of her feet, launch force fields from her hand, and turn her limbs into a number of different weapons, including a chainsaw and a lightsaber. He did not, however, give her the ability to act.

Gary Busey is all alone: Speaking of Gary Busey, it seems like the Oscar nominee and Celebrity Apprentice contestant did all of his scenes solo. More than half of the movie looked like it was filmed in front of the cheapest green screen that SyFy could afford, but the film took particular care to make it look like Busey was filming with other actors when it was clear that he was on his own soundstage. The one conversation he has with his daughter cuts between the two without ever showing them in the same frame. What, does Tara Reid have some sort of blood feud with Gary Busey that no one knows about and they couldn’t be in the same room together?

Tara Reid as April Shepard and Gary Busey as Wilford Wexler: are they feuding? Photograph: Syfy/Getty Images

Wedding in Vegas: The opening sequence of the movie is spectacular in its stupidity and naked capitalism. Fin’s son Matt (Cody Linley) and his fiancee Gabrielle (Imani Hakim) get married in a plane (with Dr Drew officiating, no less) and then decide to skydive out of it and meet his father on the roof of the Stratosphere hotel in Vegas. However, they get sucked up in the Sand Sharknado and have a tough time making it down. Gabrielle eventually lands on one of the spikes sticking out from the hotel’s roof in what has to be the world’s most intricately wrought mélange of product placement. Not only was the name of the hotel displayed prominently, but as she dangled there, a Dodge car landed on top of the spike, Fin trucked out to save her, they climbed into the car, which was delivered to the ground safely, right in front of a billboard for Xfinity, yet another sponsor of the evening.

Shark in a shark in a shark: Sorry to spoil the ending for you, but this one was so over the top that we have to talk about it. Finally defeating the tornado wearing a mechanical suit with chainsaws for arms, Fin is eaten by a shark, which is eaten by a shark, which is eaten by a shark, which is eaten by a shark, which is eaten by a blue whale, which lands on the ground next to Niagara Falls. Fin’s five-year-old son Gil (Anthony Rogers) takes a tiny chainsaw out of a stone King Arthur style and starts carving his way toward his father, unearthing a member of his family in the bowels of each successive shark. Eventually his mother April frees them all from the whale using her lightsaber attachment. When Fin isn’t breathing, she does mouth to mouth on him to no avail, but eventually rubs two tiny sharks together to create a charge and uses them to restart his heart. The sharks taketh away, but they can also giveth too.